A Devil By Any Other Name: A Sermon on Ephesians 6:10-20 NRSVUE
Preached at Blue Ocean Faith Columbus on Sunday, October 19, 2025
Reminder: I never stick completely to my written sermon. This isn’t a transcript, but the written sermon I was using when I preached.
When I say the words “devil,” “Satan,” and “Lucifer,” what do you envision?
I’m willing to bet that most of you just conjured up some version of a red creature with horns and a pitchfork. Maybe you saw a figure from a Renaissance painting, or those little cartoon characters sitting on someone’s shoulder. Perhaps, if you grew up in certain traditions, you pictured a “hell house” or some other scene meant to scare people into accepting Jesus as their lord and savior, If you’re a fan of John Milton, William Blake, or the TV series “Lucifer,” your thought of the devil might have been more human or the personification of reason and logic without limits. If you’re in a particular mood, maybe you pictured an orange man sitting in an office designed in the shape of an oval.
Images of the devil or some personification of evil are legion and have significant ties to whatever and whoever was considered “evil,” “fallen,” or otherwise unworthy in every religion and society on earth. Even in predominantly secular communities and spaces, one will hear references to the “devil in the details” and similar idioms. The word “devil” can be traced back through English to Latin then to the Greek word for “slanderer.”
Christian myths and misunderstandings have equated the terms “devil,” “Satan” (a Jewish word for the personification evil), and “Lucifer” (which originally had nothing to do with evil and was the term for the last star seen in the morning which “brought” or preempted the rising of the sun. “Lucifer” literally means “light bringer”).
However you thought of the word “devil” and whatever images it brought up for you, I’m guessing that what you didn’t picture were government buildings; detention facilities; supposed “law enforcement” officers without badges and with their faces covered; policy memos; and budget line items. That our minds don’t go immediately to those images, church is exactly the problem.
The Text
Let’s turn to our passage tonight from Ephesians 6:10-20. Paul writes:
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power; 11 put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, 12 for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day and, having prevailed against everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand, therefore, and belt your waist with truth and put on the breastplate of righteousness 15 and lace up your sandals in preparation for the gospel of peace. 16 With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. 19 Pray also for me, so that when I speak a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.”
This is the word of God for the people of God.
Now, Paul’s not so much writing about who the devil is and he’s definitely not writing a manual for casting out demons from possessed individuals. In fact, he’s not so much even commenting on spiritual warfare as we’ve learned about it or demonic possession. What he is doing is writing to people living under Roman imperial occupation, and he’s using coded language that they would have understood.
When Paul talks about “rulers,” “authorities,” and “cosmic powers,” he’s not being abstract or metaphorical. The Greek words he uses, archē, exousia, kosmokratōr, these were the exact terms used to describe the Roman imperial administration. These were the words for governors, magistrates, and the structures of empire itself.
Paul is telling his readers: Your enemy is not your neighbor. Your enemy is not flesh and blood. Your enemy is the system. Your enemy is the empire that claims divine authority. Your enemy are principalities and powers, and, friends, those principalities and powers have always worn the uniforms and the trappings of the state.
The Devil Wears Bureaucracy
We’ve been trained to individualize evil. We’ve been taught to look for the devil in personal temptation, in individual sin, and in private morality. Don’t get me wrong: we should examine our lives in these areas, and we should strive for personal transformation. Yet when we reduce all evil to individual bad choices, we miss what the Biblical writers understood and marginalized communities continue to understand: evil operates through systems, through structures, and through the machinery of empire.
The devil doesn’t need to show up with horns and a pitchfork when it can show up with a badge and a deportation order.
The devil doesn’t need to tempt you personally when it can simply make cruelty legal.
The devil doesn’t need to possess anyone when it can possess institutions.
Think about it. Yesterday, more than seven million people, including some of us here, took to the streets in the No Kings protests. In fact, around 250 people gathered in Sunbury, OH. Little rural Sunbury! And more than 6,000 people gathered in Westerville which has a reputation for being right of center. We weren’t protesting a literal monster, even though it’s tempting to position all our present troubles in the person of a single man or a small group of people. We were protesting the consolidation of power; the vast expansion of executive authority; the implementation of Project 2025; the often illegal firing of federal employees; the destruction of important, life-saving programs; the weaponization of the Justice Department; the apathy of the Supreme Court; and the overall erosion of democracy and democratic accountability.
We were standing against the principalities and powers.
We were participating in spiritual warfare.
Amen?
We’ve been so busy looking for demons under the bed that we’ve missed the demons in the boardroom. We’ve been so focused on individual possession that we’ve ignored institutional possession. We’ve been taught to fear the supernatural while the machinery of oppression grinds people into dust.
Let me be specific, because the devil is always in the details. When immigration enforcement separates families, detains children, and deports people to countries they’ve never known, that’s not just bad policy. That’s demonic. That’s the principalities and powers. That’s the cosmic forces of this present darkness operating through and with government authority.
When legislators spend more time policing the bodies and lives of Transgender people than they do feeding the hungry or housing the homeless; when they craft bills designed to erase, exclude, and endanger the whole Transgender community, that’s not just bigotry. That’s spiritual warfare. That’s the rulers and authorities that Paul warned us about.
When peaceful protesters—people exercising their sacred right to speak truth to power—are met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and mass arrests, while those who attempted a blatant (and televised) insurrection get presidential pardons, that’s not just injustice. That’s the devil wearing a badge. And let me be abundantly clear, I’m not saying that individual ICE agents or other federal law enforcement officers are inherently evil (some are) or that they are somehow possessed by the devil. Yet the system they serve, the system that allows them to cover their faces, hide their badges, and which requests that Meta ban a Facebook group with over 80,000 members to “protect” these agents, that system is evil.
These issues aren’t separate, my friends. They’re all part of the same demonic system. They’re all expressions of what Paul calls “the cosmic powers of this present darkness.”
And the scariest part? It’s all legal. It’s all official. It’s all done with proper authorization and supposedly correct procedures. And it carries the full weight of the law behind it.
That’s how empire works. That’s how the devil works. It doesn’t break the rules, it writes the rules and then blames the problem on anyone who questions or defies those rules.
The Problem with Our Language
Turning back to Paul we soon sense his imagery getting interesting and uncomfortable. Because immediately after telling us that we’re fighting against these systems and structures, he tells us to put on armor. Military armor. The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.
Anyone else see the tension here?
Paul is telling us to resist empire, and he’s using empire’s own language to do it. He’s appropriating military imagery to talk about nonviolent resistance. And church, we need to sit with how strange that is, because we do the exact same thing.
How many times have we said we’re “fighting” for justice? How often do we talk about “combating” oppression? We say that we’re “waging war” against injustice.
Even those of us committed to nonviolence have militarized our vocabulary.
And maybe…maybe that’s inevitable when you’re living in and under the regime of empire. Maybe when the principalities and powers control even our language, we have to borrow their words to subvert them. Maybe it’s not so easy to put down the master’s tools when we try to dismantle his house.
But we should at least notice it. Amen?
Because here’s what I think Paul is doing, and what we needs to do: He’s taking the language of empire and turning it inside out. He’s saying, “Yes, we’re in a battle, but not the kind Rome understands. Yes, we need armor, but not the kind that physically protects us. Yes, we need weapons, but our weapons are truth, righteousness, faith, and the Word of God.”
It’s prophetic satire, friends. Paul is using Caesar’s language to undermine Caesar’s power.
And when we talk about “fighting” for justice, maybe we can do the same. Maybe we can reclaim that language and fill it with different meaning. Maybe we can armor ourselves with love, fight with solidarity, and deploy the weapon of our stubborn, prophetic refusal to comply.
But we better know what we’re doing. We better know that real armor stops real bullets, and our metaphorical armor offers no such protection. We better know that the powers we’re resisting have real police and real prisons and real guns. We better count the cost.
If that sounds alarmist, remember that clergy in full clerics have been pepper sprayed and shot with rubber bullets during peaceful protests. Remember that children and the elderly have been slammed to the ground, beaten with batons, and attacked by heavily armed and armored police. Remember that even in Westerville at a very peaceful and joyous demonstration, word passed quietly through the crowd that there was a man walking along State Street carrying a weapon. Unfortunately, I doubt he was the only person armed.
What the Devil Doesn’t Want You to Know
Because this is a message on evil and the devil, I need to say, though it won’t surprise most folks, that I don’t believe in Satan or some other devil-figure any more than I believe in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. Sure, Satan makes for great stories, TV, and movies, and I enjoy a good demon movie just like I enjoy any good horror movie. But our Western idea of Satan is based on a combination of Greek myth, folk tradition, Dante’s Inferno, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and other historical and creative portrayals.
No, I don’t believe in the devil as it’s been portrayed. I’m not sure if there is some supernatural intelligence or being which directs the evil in our world, but I definitely believe in evil. I believe evil results from every time we choose ourselves over our communities and ourselves over our neighbors. And just as some of us are positioned to do more good than others, some of us are positioned to do more evil than others, even though we all remain complicit.
Rather than worry about the machinations of some horned beast, fallen angel, or Loki-like trickster in human form, we should be worried that the church and that we ourselves have looked for evil in all the wrong places.
As long as we’re worried about demonic possession, we won’t notice institutional oppression.
As long as we’re focused on individual sin (other than our own), we won’t see systemic evil.
As long as we’re looking for supernatural monsters, we won’t recognize the natural ones wearing suits and badges and sitting in legislative chambers.
That’s exactly what empire wants. That’s exactly what the principalities and powers need. They need us distracted. They need us spiritualized in a way that makes us useless. They need us so heavenly minded that we’re no good to anyone on earth.
But Paul won’t let us off that easy. Because after he tells us about the armor, after he uses all that military imagery, he tells us what our actual weapon is: prayer.
“Pray in the Spirit at all times,” he says. “Keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.”
Not violence. Not weapons. Not even righteous anger, as much as we might want to claim it. Prayer.
And before you check out because that sounds too spiritual, too otherworldly, too ineffective, remember that prayer in the Biblical tradition is never just words whispered in private. Prayer is the practice of aligning yourself with God’s justice. Prayer is the discipline of imagining a different world. Prayer is both conversation with the Divine and conspiracy against empire.
Repeat after me: Prayer is action.
When seven million people protested and demonstrated yesterday, that was prayer. When communities organize to stop deportations, that’s prayer. When people put their bodies on the line to protect Transgender people, that’s prayer. When we show up, when we speak up, when we stand together, that’s prayer.
Prayer is not passive. Prayer is not an escape. Prayer is not giving up on this world and waiting for the next one. Prayer is not a convenient out after a tragedy because you know you have power, but you have no intention to use it.
Prayer is the most dangerous thing you can do in empire, because prayer reminds you that you serve a different authority. Prayer reminds you that Caesar is not God and Donald Trump is not a king. Prayer reminds you that the powers that claim to be ultimate are, in fact, not.
And that’s why they want to criminalize it. That’s why they want to stop it. That’s why peaceful protesters get tear-gassed, because gathering together in the shared conviction that another world is possible is the greatest threat to empire.
Despite all the rhetoric about protecting Christians and defending religious freedom, make no mistake that when peaceful protests are dispersed and when troops are sent into American cities, the current regime is trying to prevent us from praying with our voices, our votes, and our action.
So, What Do We Do?
But what can we do? We clearly can’t dismantle the regime and the empire on our own.
The good news is that we’re not alone. Yesterday, more than seven million people showed up across the country from Westerville, OH, to Washington, DC, to Kodiak, AK, to Chicago, IL, and everywhere in between, joined together to say that despite our differences, we reject the idea of a king, a dictator, a despot leading our nation.
So, what do we do?
We continuing working in small ways, and we continue dreaming big.
We examine our own complicity. We ask: How am I benefiting from the systems I claim to oppose? How is my comfort purchased with someone else’s suffering? What would I have to give up to actually dismantle this empire?
And then we act. Sometimes big, sometimes small, but always something. Maybe it’s showing up to another protest. Maybe it’s going to a city council meeting and demanding accountability for police violence. Maybe it’s volunteering with immigrant rights organizations. Maybe it’s supporting Trans people and their families. Maybe we need to educate ourselves and others about how these systems work. Maybe it’s the everyday work of building beloved community.
Maybe it’s all of the above.
The thing about principalities and powers is that they’re massive, yes, but they’re also fragile. They look invincible, but they require our compliance to function. They need us to believe there’s no alternative. They need us to accept that this is just how things are now.
But, friends, we know better. We follow a God who specializes in alternatives. We walk with Jesus who refused to comply even when compliance would have saved his life. We’re led by the Holy Spirit who keeps whispering that another world is possible.
Amen?
The Armor We Actually Need
I want to talk about that armor one more time. Paul tells us to put on truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God.
None of those are weapons. None of those are for attack. They’re all for protection, for endurance, for standing firm.
Here’s what Paul understands that we keep forgetting: The point isn’t to become like the powers we’re fighting. The point isn’t to out-violence violence or out-hate hate. The point is to stand. To resist. To refuse. To remain human when empire wants to make us into machines.
Recall Dr. King’s statement that “Darkness cannot drive darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
The belt of truth means we tell the truth about what’s happening, even when it’s dangerous, even when it’s costly, even when people don’t want to hear it.
The breastplate of righteousness means we live out the justice we claim to believe in, not as individual virtue but as collective practice.
The shoes of peace mean we keep showing up, keep building relationships across difference, keep choosing solidarity over separation.
The shield of faith means we trust that God’s power is greater than empire’s power, even when all evidence suggests otherwise.
The helmet of salvation means we remember that we’ve already been rescued from the lie that empire is ultimate.
And the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God: that’s the dangerous truth that God sides with the oppressed, that the first will be last and the last will be first, that every empire falls eventually and that God’s kin-dom never ends.
That’s our armor. That’s our weapon. And church, that’s enough. Not because it makes us invincible. Not because it protects us from suffering. But because it keeps us faithful. It keeps us human. It keeps us free even in captivity, alive even in the face of death, hopeful even when things look hopeless.
A Devil by Any Other Name
So, the devil may or may not be real, but evil is very real. The principalities and powers are real. The cosmic forces of this present darkness are real.
But they’re not supernatural beings floating around in the ether.
They’re systems. They’re structures. They’re empires and their endless appetite for control.
They’re immigration enforcement and transphobic legislation and the criminalization of protest.
They’re every time we’re told that cruelty is necessary, that violence is inevitable, that this is just how the world works.
And, friends, we don’t have to accept that.
We can name these powers for what they are. We can expose them. We can resist them. We can refuse to comply.
Not with violence. Not with hate. Not by becoming what we oppose. But with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the living Word of a God who will not be ruled by anyone, including Trump and his cast of Christian nationalists.
Yesterday, people gathered by the millions to say, “No Kings.” That’s spiritual warfare. That’s resistance to the principalities and powers. That’s what it looks like to stand firm against the rulers and authorities of this present darkness.
And today, we gather here to remember that we serve a different kind of king: one who rode a donkey instead of a warhorse, who washed feet instead of commanding armies, who died rather than kill, and who rose again to prove that death itself is not the final word.
That king calls us to a different kind of kin-dom. One where the last are first and the first are last. Where the powerful are brought down and the lowly lifted up. Where there are no deportations because there are no borders. Where there’s no discrimination because all are made in the image of God. Where there’s no violence against protesters because we’ve learned to argue without force.
That kin-dom isn’t just coming, friends. It’s here. It’s now. It’s wherever we choose to live like it’s already true.
And the devil—by any name, in any uniform, with any authority—cannot stand against the kin-dom of our God.
Amen.